


Where Were You?

by intrvrtd



Series: Whatever Is Left Of Me, I Give To You [2]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Love, Past Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Relationship Issues, Relationship Problems, Romance, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29701479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrvrtd/pseuds/intrvrtd
Summary: During some down time between missions some of the crew play cards and afterwards Jack and Shepard have their first fight as a couple
Relationships: Jack | Subject Zero/Male Shepard
Series: Whatever Is Left Of Me, I Give To You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182776
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Where Were You?

The Collector base had been destroyed, the entire crew Miranda included had officially left Cerberus and after spending three weeks on Omega the Normandy was repaired and re-supplied, the ship was now spending the next five days traveling to Illium to assist Liara with the shadow broker. Even with the relay system there would always be downtime like this on starships and Friday nights on the Normandy Garrus, Tali, Joker, Dr. Chakwas, and Shepard would always play poker or skyllian five, it was becoming something of a tradition.

Shepard rolled over and saw Jack still sleeping next to him, and she was still wearing his N7 hoodie and when he asked her about it she simply shrugged and said “it’s warm and it smells like you”

When he didn’t respond she asked “what? You want it back or something?”

“Nah, it looks good on you, keep it” he answered “but I still wouldn’t mind you taking it off” he said as hand began to run under the hoodie

“Ya know you’re really lucky that I enjoy how much of a perv you can be sometimes” she laughed

“I am _very_ lucky” he agreed

They’ve been together every night since the Omega 4 relay, at this point she had essentially moved into his quarters, she didn’t say anything about it and he didn’t question it, they were both clearly quite happy with this new arrangement. Shepard had asked her several times before if she would be interested in joining them in their weekly game of cards and she always refused, turning him down saying “she had no interest in spending the whole night hanging out with his loser friends.” No matter how many times he would tell her that they would all love to have her there, she always rebuffed him. This fact didn’t stop him from asking her to come tonight and he figured her answer would be no different, except tonight she said yes.

The six of them gathered in the mess hall and they had begun to play, drink, and laugh. Garrus didn’t say much as usual, Tali would be asking everyone at the table for tips, Shepard and Chakwas would stay silent playing their cards close to their chest, and Jack and Joker traded increasingly harsh insults all night, needless to say the evening was going perfectly. As the evening wound down only Jack, Joker, and Shepard remained and Joker pulled in the chips from the last hand, he said he was done, mumbling something about “feeling guilty about taking this much of the commander’s money,” to which Jack replied “yeah you played well tonight I’d pat you on the back to congratulate you but I’m sure Shepard would be pissed if I broke your spine” she retorted with a devilish smile.

All in all the evening was a success everybody seemed to have fun, they all got a little drunk, not sloppy drunk but a fun coherent buzz, well everyone except for Jack and Shepard, since Jack was such a powerful biotic it took quite an effort on her part to get drunk and thanks to all those damn Cerberus cybernetics in his body Shepard didn’t get drunk so easily anymore either. As they rode the elevator back to their quarters in a pretty sober state, Shepard smiled at the fact that his quarters had become their quarters. As the elevator slowly went up he realized something was wrong, he had a few girlfriends before Jack and a familiar feeling was upon him, there was a harsh tension between them, and it led to an awkward silence, they had known eachother for over ten months, they’ve been together nearly two months now and there had never been an awkward silence between them, he knew this was just the calm before the storm.

When they entered the cabin Shepard’s thoughts raced and wondered if he said something while playing cards that crossed the line and he quickly shut down that line of thought because he knew if he pissed Jack off she would have called him out immediately even in front of the crew. Growing annoyed with the crushing silence he nearly blurted out “what’s wrong?” but then he recalled no angry woman in the history of time has ever responded well to being bluntly asked what’s wrong, he decided for a safer diplomatic approach “I’m glad you came with me tonight it was fun, and you think we should tell Tali that we can see her cards in the reflection of her facemask?” No response came, he began taking off his clothes heading towards the bed, he figured if she had something to say she’d say it trying to drag it out of her would only piss her off. Shepard fell onto the bed and Jack sat on the table across from his bed and finally ended her silence "we need to talk" and Shepard winced at those words, never in the history of human relationships were those four words a good thing.

“Tonight was fun, like really fun, shit the whole night just felt so _normal_ ” Jack said sounding disgusted by that last word

“So you had a good time? What the hell is wrong then?” Shepard asked

“What took you so long?” she asked coldly

“What do you mean?” he responded with genuine confusion

He saw the anger building in her eyes and he knew that this wasn’t going anywhere good, he had seen Jack angry before many times but this time it was directed at him.

“Everywhere we go you’re always the fucking boy scout, you always have to play the big hero and save everybody! You remember the last time we were on Illium? You remember that quarian girl who was sold into indentured servitude aka slavery and then that weird green asari bitch who needed help with her colony, you just dropped everything to help them no questions asked, and its not just them you do that shit everywhere we go!” She was now yelling

“Yeah and?” was his only reply

“WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU? WHY THE HELL DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO FIND ME!” she was screaming and getting closer to his face with the blue aura of her biotics beginning to flair

Jack was now furious and pacing across the room “I’ve told you about my past so don’t play dumb, my whole childhood I was tortured as a Cerberus lab rat and then when I finally escaped I found myself with pirates and they passed me around between them so I could _earn_ my way onto the crew, so again, WHERE WERE YOU!?!?!” she said half yelling, half crying

John Shepard as usual was oblivious, he didn’t see it coming and he truly should have, Jack had revealed so many dark parts of her past to him, all those years of suffering and torment all alone and nobody ever even tried to help her, all the people she came across used her, and now to top it all off she has to watch him walk around saving people like it’s a damn hobby. Shepard got up and sat on the table with her and wrapped his arms around her, she started to push away at first but then wrapped her arms tightly around him. Through the years Commander Shepard had been famous for his way with words, hell he had even convinced Saren Arterius to kill himself but now as held this crying biotic in his arms, the woman he _loved_ , he had no idea what to say.

After a few moments he mumbled out “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you Jack, I wish I had been….” He stopped knowing full well that she had no interest in his sorry’s.

“I told you about Mindoir and how I watched my mother and sister get killed right?” he asked while rubbing her back and felt her nod yes with her face still buried in his chest

“Did you know it took two days for the Alliance to finally drag their asses there, it was like they were waiting for a written invitation to save the colony, I was still in the front lawn of our house holding my twin sister Jane in my arms when an Alliance soldier came running up to me with some medi-gel, I jumped up and started punching him, it took three marines to pull me off him, they poor guy didn’t do anything wrong I was just so angry, in the two days it took them to get there one third of the colony was dead and another one third were taken as slaves” Shepard sighed “ I don’t know why I brought that up, I knows its not the same thing, I just….”

She cut him off as her own sobs were dying down “no it's fine, I know what you’re were trying to say dumbass, it's just sometimes nights like tonight make me wonder what my life could have been like if I had met someone like you sooner” she paused thinking about her next words

“John can I be honest with you” she asked with her voice now so quiet compared to how loud it was moments ago

“Always” he replied

“Sometimes half of me hates you for not being there when things were so bad, but then the other half of me loves you because you’re here now, I know how crazy that sounds, I can feel how fucked up those words are as they leave my mouth, there are just times it feels so hopeless because I know one day you're going to get tired of trying to fix this” she said as her hand moved over her chest “you will finally run out of patience for me and you're just gonna walk,” she finished burying her face in his chest again

“Jack I’m not going to bullshit you and say everything will be ok, we both know how empty words like that can be, but I can promise you that I’m not going to walk, I’m not going to leave you” he said

“You promise?” she asked with a hopeful sadness in her voice

“I promise” he said without hesitation

“If you ever hurt me, I’ll kill you” she stated with her tears soaking into his shirt

They both fell back onto the bed with Jack curling up to him tightly, but before Shepard drifted off he thought about the promise he made to Jack, he meant every word of it, he knew things between them were never going to be easy and even though it was still pretty early in their relationship, he knew this thing Jack and him had was real and he was going to fight like hell to keep it, he wasn't going anywhere, and with any luck he would never have to find out if Jack was serious about killing him.

**Author's Note:**

> any comments are welcome


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